Hereafter
by MessengerOfDreams
Summary: Ike writes to an old friend after the war. Continuation of the Viva La Vida universe from a story years back.


**I for some reason am revisiting the universe of an oooooooooooooold piece. I don't know, this just needed to happen. You can still get into it either way. Hope you enjoy it.**

Hey there Isa.

Strange that I'm still writing you letters, in the same journal that's housed my writing over the last handful of years, where each entrant gets messier and more nonsensical. Guess you've been on my mind lately, which is strange for someone with such a short part of my history. Then again it's not like it wasn't a vital part of my history... but still, so short. So short but it feels like an eternity. I feel much older than I am. We celebrated my forty-second birthday a week ago. We celebrated in that sort of understated way we do. Just a couple slices of cake, listening to the radio and dancing with two left feet, sleeping comfortably and waking up together under the sheets. Nothing we haven't done before, but just taking the time to do it and make sure you have a good day. You learn to appreciate the smaller things after awhile, especially after living on a grand scale.

It's weird to think of life after war. Samus says she feels the same way, but she doesn't really dwell on such matters. There's a reason I bought her a coat for Christmas and she bought me a journal. Practical for her, philosophical for me. I've filled these pages in my dead time trying to figure things out. I find I'm trying to figure out simple things more than the big picture. Because we've already done our part for the big picture. Hoorah, fight for home, for our people, for the safety of the greatest country ever, hallelujah, God bless our troops. The same grandiose shit that you see everywhere. A pleasant surface. Apparently you're a hero now. Then you get home and... things never feel the same.

I realize that you're never going to have life after war. The concept of heaven is nice but all I know is that you're six feet under. And I'm not sure if even heaven could fix what the world broke in us, at least not without taking vital parts of who we are. I guess in some ways I'm trying to communicate to you what that's like, as well as trying to figure it out myself. I kind of envy Samus. She takes the hits straightforward, and the little bumps don't matter to her. One, two, three, hut. Repetition as usual. Meanwhile I feel like everything I do is like trying to read braille when I never knew I'd need to before- it's all bumps and ridges that I'm sure will mean something someday but at first is a mess, until you learn it and slowly it makes sense... but still is never quite right. So you keep learning, keep reading, keep writing.

There's just feelings, moments, sort of unaware little tidbits. You don't realize you're hurt until you look back. Caution's just a part of me now- looking over my shoulder even though it helps nothing, holding her a little too tight, not feeling quite secure even in our home. It's comforting to sleep beneath the blankets sometime, exciting even, just to hide under there where you can't be seen, only imagined. I wonder if that's what death is like. Just that constant feeling of no longer being visible by people, just an eternity of hiding in peace.

I thought I'd hate being alone. Lord knows I don't know what I'd do without Samus. But sometimes you just want to be alone. Not just without people, but without Earth. Without life. Without the concept of existence. Nirvana or something. I don't think I could handle heaven. An all new society, an all new set of rules, an all new everything. I think I just want nothing, absolutely nothing that can harm me, change me, tear me apart, confuse me, just become a big sloppy mess.

Everyone always talks about the PTSD, the bad memories, the way it feels to watch someone you love die, which somehow isn't worse than killing people you'll never see or meet. Sometimes I have to realize that not only do you know no life after war, neither do many men and women I've killed without a second thought. Seventy-two. I counted. Wish I hadn't, because then maybe I could pretend it was all a bad dream. Somehow those seventy-two deaths still can't outweigh the strain on my heart that my one closest friend dying has left. Isn't that selfish? I've taken literally seventy-twofold of what has been taken from me, and I have the nerve to feel deprived.

It's just the little pangs that get me. The insecurity, the fear, the guilt, they don't always- hell, not even often- come up in big waves. It's just an empty scar on your consciousness. It's just a part of you now. I think that's what's helped Samus and I. We went through two parts of the same thing before we ran into each other. But we know that if we hold up, if we're for real, if we spend an eternity together, no one who has been free of this all will ever have our trust as much as us. I think silently we've decided not to have children because we don't want to impart that upon them. Always building a home for two, no more, no less. Maybe not even any visitors. But it's a home. It's a life. It's a world of our own.

I think that's what starts to put it together. Makes me happy I survived. I have a home now, Isa. Not just a house, a place to stay. A home. For once, we're building a small microculture that isn't all harmful. That helps and heals each other, even at the expense of breaking every once in awhile. Something unique to both of us- her inner strength has carried me on many a days where I felt invalid. And I think I've been able to bring a bit of color into her world. Before we fell for each other, or I guess her for me, I'd always been fond of her, she was never one to laugh or express joy. I guess she wanted to be above all of that, still be stronger than she feels, but now she laughs constantly, and it's amazing. Just letting herself be happy.

I think that's more incredible because she's not fixed. And if she's like me, she's never going to be completely fixed. I guess everyone dies in battle in some form. I think that's why we found each other, and that's why I'm grateful I fell for a fellow soldier, because whether we bleed together or win together, we're together in every way. I will never have to explain on a nightly basis things I can't describe to a lover who doesn't understand, who can't understand the moments that still ring through my head- willing or unwilling. Can't understand why I never want to burden children with my experiences. Doesn't understand how to cope with loss- loss of senses, loss of comrades, loss of humanity. I have someone who understands, and is just as flawed as I. Misery loves company, even if company kills misery. It doesn't fix everything- our loss, our wounds, our physical tarnishes, our trauma, our damage- but it makes the weight easier to bear.

We've occupied ourselves by planning the wedding. As you can imagine, there won't be many people, although our small circle of friends is still growing ever so slightly. Samus's struck it up with the shopkeeper, I've talked to a couple of friends from the VFW. Still keep in touch with Brian and Mallory, although not as often. They're off doing their own things on their own branched paths in the giant spiderweb that's the human race, and have plenty of broken strings that can't be rebuilt that they have to find a way to clean up, kind of like I'm trying to do here. I promise you, Isadora, that the world is still capable of beauty even after we've torn it up. I've lived as the winter give way to spring, not only reminding me the world is graciously beautiful, but that somehow the winter that nearly froze me out of humanity is beautiful in a cosmic sense, but only there.

We're going to have it on Violet Hill. Our home away from home. Where our favorite miracle bird lives. Sometimes I wonder if it's a remnant of you, protecting and watching over us, but I suppose that's selfish of me to request you as a guardian angel. You've finished your tour of duty and have saved my life once, one more time than I've deserved. Between deployments, the bird would be a link between us. I still don't know if I imagine her existence until I see the letters. At one time we both tried to escape. Foolish romantics, I suppose, falling too fast to register the impact. We made it, too, escape plans and fantasies of the future in mind, but I think we both knew it'd never work. Sometimes I hate myself for relenting, especially knowing the cost, but in some ways we got off lucky. No, I'll never be an honorable soldier, and you won't see Samus winning any purple hearts, but we knew this was not just for the country or for some grand entity, but for our own survival. We paid the price to live in peace, even if the peace was from our country.

Would I do it all over again? I don't know if, knowing what I know now, I'd be strong enough. I didn't re-enlist, for obvious reasons, but Samus says that she'd run before she ever served again. But from the beginning, knowing everything would lead me through to you, to the others, to Samus... to home... I realize that I was fighting for my home after all, I just never knew how. And even if the windows are cracked and the place feels so cold sometimes, I think that... yes, I'd fight for it. I'd fight for myself, for others like me, for you.

Samus says that I should consider a career in speaking. Mallory's tried it, and she loves it. But Mal's never been poetic, which is why she's been so successful. She speaks from the heart. That's how she processes things. Samus processes it through silence and thousand-yard-stares that become a painless, joyless, sanitary process. I process it by trying to dissect it, to find the beauty and the ugliness in how I feel, to see if I can rationalize the feelings I have. I don't need to speak to the world. I'm speaking to myself, really. The letter's sent to you, even though you'll never receive it, but I'm speaking to myself. The only person I really need to sort things out with.

I still miss you. I'd invite you if I could. Sometimes I still think I feel your presence next to me. Never looking from above, never clawing from below. Just the moments where the ghost on my back isn't of the seventy-two I killed, but of the one who gave her life for me.

I guess if I'm writing to myself, I'll always be writing a little bit to you as well.

I'll end the letter shortly, although I'm not sure if it's a letter or if aimless lines on paper. Some things are instinctual, but lord knows how the manuscript looks. Regardless, Samus suggested we shop a bit for the wedding. She's got a dress picked out, which surprised me- I wouldn't be surprised to see her married in a pair of hiking boots and khaki jeans, even if it's just mental visuals now. I wonder what it'll look like, and I suppose I'll daydream a bit about what she'll look like on top of the hill with me, part of me, part of my home. I still hold onto the images I had of her from so long ago, under the trees and between the flowers atop snow-colored hills, eyes aglow and finally looking alive again. I wonder what she looks like now. I'd imagine she aged gracefully, and that even when she does nothing at all it can mesmerize you.

Gods, I wish you could see how beautiful I imagine her to be- I still remember the smile that ekes out of her stoic face, the way she walks like every step is a miracle, her perfectly sorted blonde hair that seems both carefully maintained and naturally abandoned. She's poetry in motion, but maybe it's because I've been writing her. Gods, I wish you could see how beautiful this world is. Even I can, because it's not visual. Despite the pain, the wickedness, the gray fog that settles over everything, it's still so beautiful. If there's anything I hope these letters impart to you, it's that you can have a little bit of that Earthly beauty wherever you are.

~James


End file.
